Sunday, 7 November 2010

How To Cook A Graph SkepticalScience.com Style

Above is a graph of September arctic ice amount taken from the website of the Nationalized Snow and Ice (adjusted) Data Center (NSIDC). Warmists will have you believe that arctic ice is in decline and will regularly show you this graph to confuse you into believing their claim.

In order to deny the claim that arctic ice is in decline you first need to find something wrong with the graph. Anything will do, but below I will run through all the things I found wrong with the graph. This is an indictment of both the NSIDC and SkepticalScience.com

First notice the Y-axis of the above NSIDC graph starts at four million. Yet everyone knows numbers start at zero, not four million! Even kids learn this in school. In technical speak, the NSIDC graph misleads people into thinking 4 million is the smallest integer. Hilariously the SkepticalScience.com graph has 3 million as the lowest y-axis value! The warmists can't make up their minds! If they can't agree on Y-axes how can they possibly predict the weather in 100 years time? Graph y-axes should always start at zero or else they will mislead people.

Lets correct the graph and remove that biased trend line at the same time:

What's next? Is there anything else in the graph above that we can bitterly complain about? Notice the y-axis reads "kilometers". That's interesting. Why is a US science body using a French measurement system? Perhaps it has no effect though. Perhaps the unit of measurement used in the graph has no bearing on the actual rate of sea ice decline. But we can't assume that's the case. Lets replace "square kilometers" with "square miles" instead and see what difference it makes:

Shocking. Compare the two graphs above. I wouldn't like to accuse the NSIDC and SkepticalScience.com of deliberate fraud, but is it just coincidence that the French system of kilometers shows faster sea ice decline than the US system of miles?

When the French measurement system disagrees with the American one, we should always stick to to the American one, not only for patriotism, but also because men landed on the moon using miles not kilometers. If you go to Europe you will be shocked at the levels of poverty. Many of them are so poor that they only learn English as a second or even third language. Even England in Britain, UK has switched away from kilometers and now officially uses miles.

There are two more problems with the graph though. Can you spot them?

The upper limit of the graph of 8.5 million square miles is wrong. The true upper limit should reflect the total surface area of the Earth which, assuming a round Earth, is roughly 200 million square miles (a flat Earth would be somewhat more but for now lets take a conservative estimate and assume mainstream science is right).

Graph modified so that y-axis reflects range of total surface area of the Earth

That's far more clear. Immediately I am having trouble seeing the sea ice. This is good. If you can't see it, it's not a problem.

The final correction is to do likewise with the x-axis. It is typical of warmists to omit the past even as they try to predict the future. Lets add in the full age span of the Earth:

547 comments:

I have two comments:1. If you're going to use the whole globe, then you should add in the Antarctic ice. Alternatively, just use the northern hemisphere.2. Obviously there are areas of the globe that will never get iced over (e.g. Texas and my barbecued burger), and it is wrong to include these. These areas obviously need to be excluded. My suggestion would be to normalise with the March sea ice maximum. This will tell you whether the sea ice maximum or minimum is more important for climate change (obviously if the maximum is to be used, it should be normalised with the minimum).

"but is it just coincidence that the French system of kilometers shows faster sea ice decline than the US system of miles?"

Km is the commonly used metric in the climate science literature (I know you've never heard of it).

Another thing, miles are not equal to km so if you didn't wanna do a half assed job you would of converted instead of using the same scale (if you converted they would look the same, but you know that). 1.6 km = 1 mile so why go all the way to the "8" with miles if that's as far as you went with km?

Also the fit used is appropriate. See the following link where Tamino used the same fit to predict the 2010 value and came extremely close.

If you think a linear line of best fit is the best choice, then go for it. Tell me, when does the linear trend show an ice free arctic during september?

http://tamino.wordpress.com/2010/10/15/go-ice-go-going-going-gone/

Your last graph comparing it to the whole earth is idiotic by the way. You should know that losing arctic sea ice has important effects with respect to the amount of absorbed radiation in polar regions. Do you think that if you take away an extremely reflective surface it would cause nothing?

Oh dear...1. It's usually a good idea to minimize empty space in graphs -> the scales of the axis don't necessarily have to start at 0.2. Science uses the metric system, because it makes a lot more sense. Converting to square miles only makes a difference because you also increase the scale to an improper size.3. The amount of the polar ice compared to the surface of the entire world? WTF? How does that have anything to do with the fact that the amount of ice is currently decreasing?4. There is no information before 1979, because there is no measurements before 1979. And how does the amount of ice, say, 2000 years ago have anything to do with the fact that the ice cap is decreasing right now?

Though I'm disappointed that the great Dr Inferno had no scope for artistic expression this time. I do think that the sloping x axis has been underused in all science, not just blog science, and its greatest exponent has an obligation to continue to display its wonderfulness.

I would like for someone to explain why the Sahara has existed for hundreds of thousands of years before we had fire wood? Why the ice melted 12,000 years ago before we invented the car? Does anyone think that the earth may do its own thing and science should try to understand how and why the earth, not little man is in charge. DW

Salut CC deniers, CC supporters, and others like me... extending the x-y axis to infinite values will always show a change as unchanged. After pissing in a bowl, I can always draft a graph showing the level in the bowl has not increased and the bowl is empty. Same rationale than for the above demonstration. What you should have shown is the relative loss of ice, the delta: the melted volume divided by the total volume: 0.001% ? More? Less? This is indeed nothing... Well I am trying to help you. But what the impact is not so important now (I mean for the 5% of us on the planet with AC in our cars and houses) but for our children and grand children. How they are going to deal with the environmental induced displaced people (if CC exists) ? UNFPA said recently: if the fertility does not significantly reduce, we ll be 11 billion in 2050 with 9.8 billion in developing countries, majority in towns... with logically an acceleration of climate change (if it is not an invention of the scientists to justify their salary)... Pierre

Your post is a revelation, and just shows how the eco-fascist warmers will stop at nothing to twist a point to their advantage.

I must point out, however, two things you missed: there were periods of rapid ice recovery in 1984, 1990, 1995 and 2007; and secondly, there are almost equal numbers of times when the ice went up from one year to the next, as when it went down. Simple statistics shows that we can expect a rebound in the ice at least four times in the next 20 years or so. Hardly a problem!

And your final graph really puts the ice question into perspective. It is important to step back and take in the big picture, as you have done. You are an inspiration to us all, and I salute your tireless pursuit of truth. I hope to meet you in person one day and shake your hand - we can share a glass of grain alcohol and rainwater, and shoot a few moose.

Excellent post, Professor Inferno. Every time I visit your excellent blog I learn something excellent. I will apply your techniques to the graph of my income before the next suprise visit by the tax inspector. It does sadden me, though, that this particular post is attracting a lot of alarmist warmists. Maybe it's because of your link to that filthy "skeptical" sceince site. (Is it a coincidence that the abbreviation of Skeptikal Sceince is "SS"?) Note how they are not responding to your points but just try to laugh it all away! It means they cannot argue against the truth that you are exposing in your excellent blog.

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Yea, I met this global warming guy..his name was Smith. He got honest with me. This is what he said: "Id like to share a revelation that I've had during my time here. It came to me when I tried to classify your species... I realized that you're not actually mammals. Every mamal on this planet instictively develops a natural equalibrium with the surrounding environment, but humans do not... you move to an area and you multiply and muliply until every natural resource is consumed and the only way you can survive is to spread to another area. There is another organism on this planet that follows this same pattern... do you know what it is? A virus. Human beings are a disease, a cancer of this planet... you are a plague... and we are the cure..." He said that once we got down to 500,000,000, the surrounding environment would be alright (with a few more 'minor' restrictions, or course...) He sure acted like he'd really enjoy getting us down to that number, though...

Axis on a graph always have to be chosen to make your point clear without hiding important facts. If i follow the (sorry for you but not at all scientific) ideas of this post you have to transform all graphs to information free dots.You probably never heard of statistics?

Incredible. Science at its worst. I stumbled upon your blog looking for information about the veracity of skepticalscience.com. Rather than debunk their site, you actually made me think they must be right. If yours are the only arguments against what they say, they must be right.-Every science class I've had since Jr. High was conducted in the metric system (or "French System" as you call it). It has been the system of choice for science for decades, and the US has even considered switching to it several times. -If you're going to convert to miles, convert your axis too-Blank space is often left off of graphs. There is no rule that the y axis should start at 0. Let's say you wanted to plot the moon's distance from the earth. Would you start at zero?-The fit curve skepticalscience.com used was a statistically valid one-"Galileo was a Denier." Actually, no, the Roman Catholic church was the denier. Galileo was the revolutionary scientist trying to get people to listen to his discoveries. In this scenario, you are the Roman Catholic Church-I was so thoroughly disgusted by your first few points and ashamed at the number of commenters taken in by your blog that I didn't make it to the end. I'm hoping that in the part I skipped over you say "April Fools!" or maybe "Or that's what I would say if I had absolutely no clue what I was talking about."

You cant see the decline in your mile graph as you have not built it the proper way - if you stretch it out in a way that in the new graph the 2 mile mark is where the 8 mile is in the old one and the 1 mile mark is where the 4 mile mark is (which by the way is going to look just like the kilometer graph) you will see the decline clearly. Or you can go the opposite way reducing the space between the mile marks in your mile graph even further, while increasing the space between the year marks - that would actually make the "decline" look like a line parallel to the X axis. Should have taken some math (about relations) and science (how to build graphs using data) classes first.

The warmists want to fudge the y axis by focussing on a very small part of it, emphasising a non-extant change in sea-ice?

Warmists continually supply us with ammo - but they don't even aware of it!! So, if we take the graph for Antarctic sea ice and emphasise even more their lying method of emphasising changes, use kms instead of miles, only look at the last 30 years, limit the y axis to the highest and lowest data points - hey presto! Antarctic sea ice is growing so fast it will cover the planet by the IPCC 'end of century'!!

Don't believe me? If you measure the growth of Antarctic sea ice from now (March) over the next 5 months, and then multiply that growth by ten years, you'll get some interesting results. For some reason, alarmist sea ice bloggers never seem to find the time to do this very basic blog science. If you show them a map of the globe, they wouldn't even be able to point out where the Antarctica is. Their fingers just keep going North, drawn by the magnetic force of their Arctic ideology.

No matter how you "cook" it, the mean (average) area of the ice represented by these graphs decrease in by 33% in 40 years. That's very substantial. Any graph should show a narrow enough range to give visual impact. That's what a graph is for. When misused, a graph will be alarmist if it shows huge changes when the percentage is low, or little change when the percentage is high. Your edited versions are guilty of the latter.Additionally, the math you did to convert to square miles from square kilometers is wrong, and the comment about the conversion is even more wrong, since it references linear measure, not area.FWIW, I teach auto mechanics, so it wouldn't be fair to say I am in favor of getting rid of cars, etc. I'm just anti-ignorance.

Guys, you surely must be kidding. You have succeeded at producing a graph on which the data is barely visible and claim that hence the facts don't exist. That's like a kid hiding under the blanket so that their mother can't see them - in case you didn't notice: that rarely helped when the parents know there's a kid in that bed.

If you're interested in educating people: teach them how to read a graph. The above article is pure disinformation. As a few people point out in the comments, minimal yearly sea-ice coverage has decreased by about 30% in the last 30 years - that is a very significant change, no matter how you plot it!

Axis on a graph always have to be chosen to make your point clear without hiding important facts.If i follow the (sorry for you but not at all scientific) ideas of this post you have to transform all graphs to information free dots.

Yet everyone knows numbers start at zero, not four million! Even kids learn this in school. In technical speak, the NSIDC graph misleads people into thinking 4 million is the smallest integer. solar panel

This is indeed nothing... Well I am trying to help you. But what the impact is not so important now (I mean for the 5% of us on the planet with AC in our cars and houses) but for our children and grand children.

This is indeed nothing... Well I am trying to help you. But what the impact is not so important now (I mean for the 5% of us on the planet with AC in our cars and houses) but for our children and grand children.

If you measure the growth of Antarctic sea ice from now (March) over the next 5 months, and then multiply that growth by ten years, you'll get some interesting results. For some reason, alarmist sea ice bloggers never seem to find the time to do this very basic blog science. If you show them a map of the globe, they wouldn't even be able to point out where the Antarctica is. rattan shop

For some reason, alarmist sea ice bloggers never seem to find the time to do this very basic blog science. If you show them a map of the globe, they wouldn't even be able to point out where the Antarctica is.denverwebexperts.com

Though I'm disappointed that the great Dr Inferno had no scope for artistic expression this time. I do think that the sloping x axis has been underused in all science, not just blog science, and its greatest exponent has an obligation to continue to display its wonderfulness.

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I am certainly not afraid to be called a climate denier, in fact I embrace the term denier as medal of honor, once bestowed upon Galileo and lately upon me. That is why this blog is called Denial Depot - serving up all your denial needs.

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I believe the day will come when all science is done on blogs, because us bloggers are natural skeptics, refusing to believe the Official Story handed out by the government. When so-called "experts" in their "peer reviewed journals" say one thing, we dare the impossible and find an imaginative justification to believe the complete opposite.